Number Crunching
1 Division of Systems and Computer Services, Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, 1120 Fifteenth St, Augusta, GA 30912
2 Section of Neonatology, Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, 1120 Fifteenth St, Augusta, GA 30912
To the Editor.
A recent letter1 suggested that a "gaffe" and "blunder" was committed by the author of an earlier article.2 The letter is signed, "Student," reminding us of W. S. Gossett, the original "Student" of "Student's t-distribution" fame. Gossett was employed by Guinness Brewery which had forbidden him from publishing under his own name. Perhaps the letter writer was imbibing Gossett's product and not his wisdom.
Specifically, the letter writer suggests that Apgar scores are "semiquantitative," are ordinal and that "the arithmetic mean and standard deviation of Apgar scores are meaningless expressions."




